14 ways you can control your home with your voice using Amazon's Echo and Alexa

Dave Smith/Tech Insider
Merely owning an Amazon Echo could be the impetus you need to turn your regular home into a smart home.

Indeed, it would almost be a waste to simply use it as a regular Bluetooth speaker or ask it about it tomorrow's weather. Apple's Siri can already do that.

More and more smart-home and connected-device companies are adding support for Amazon's smart AI assistant, called Alexa, so you can control almost anything that uses electricity in your home using your voice.

Smart light bulbs.

You don't need to rewire your home to control your lights by voice with Alexa. You simply need to buy smart LED bulbs that can connect to WiFi or a smart hub that's compatible with Amazon's Echo.

With Alexa and your voice, you can turn the bulbs on or off. If your smart bulbs are dimmable, you can also use your voice to set their brightness, and even change their color if the bulbs you bought supports colors!

Dimmers and switches.

If you'd rather not buy smart bulbs, you can use Alexa-compatible dimmers and switches to control your home's lighting.

You can find a bunch of dimmers and switches compatible with Alexa here. Note that not all dimmers and switches in the link are compatible with Alexa, make sure to look for "Works with Alexa" in the product name or description, and whether it needs a hub to work with Alexa.

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Smart outlets

Smart outlets plug right into your regular outlets, and you can plug pretty much any device to the smart outlet itself to turn those devices on or off with your voice. You can also set the smart outlet to turn on or off on a schedule, too.

Smart door locks.

For smart door locks, you'll need a smart home hub compatible with Alexa from companies like Vivint, Securify Almond, Lutron, Samsung SmartThings, Nexia, and Wink that works with the smart lock of your choice.

However, due to security, you can't ask Alexa to unlock your doors. Alexa has amazing voice recognition, and all it takes is a tech-savvy burglar to shout at Alexa from outside to unlock your doors.

Turn on your gadgets, like TVs and sound systems.

With your Amazon Echo with Alexa, you can turn your TV on, off, change the volume, and switch channels.

To do so, you'll need a specific hub designed to work with entertainment devices. Logitech's Harmony remote/hub (or just the hub) is compatible with Alexa and a popular choice for controlling your various entertainment devices with a single remote.

Control your appliances.

For smart fridges, you can ask Alexa to add something to your shopping list and even place an order for groceries, all without having to tap your smart fridge like a giant tablet.

For smart washer/dryers, you can ask Alexa to start a cycle and how long is left until it's done.

There are even smart ovens you can ask Alexa to preheat or turn off, as well as smart window air conditioners and water heaters, too.

GE already has a few appliances that work with Alexa, and Whirlpool recently announced new appliances that will be compatible, too.

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Use Alexa for your car.

Tesla

Ford and Volkswagen announced at CES 2017 that they will integrate Alexa into their cars in over the next few years.

That means you could control your home, like lighting and temperature, from the comfort of your car using your voice. And that's great because turning on your home's lights and setting the temperature with your smart thermostat with an app is likely to distract the driver.

Eventually, you'll also be able to use Alexa from home to lock/unlock, start your car, and set the climate control.

If you can't wait for car companies to add Alexa's functionality to their cars, you could use Amazon's Echo Dot in your own car, which worked out surprisingly well for Business Insider's own Cork Gaines, who uses an Echo Dot in his truck.

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Ceiling fans.

Haiku

Yep, ceiling fans.

Fan, lighting, and HVAC company Haiku teamed up with Amazon to let you control its ceiling fans speeds and lights with Alexa.

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The Amazon Fire TV's remote has Alexa built in.

Amazon

The Amazon Fire TV's remote, which comes with the Amazon Fire TV stick or Amazon Fire TV streaming box, comes with Alexa built in, so you can do everything you can do with the Amazon Echo without the Echo device itself. That also includes controlling the Fire TV so you can open apps to play video and music.

The main difference is that you have to press the microphone button on the Fire TV remote itself to activate Alexa, whereas with the Echo you can activate Alexa by simply calling it with your voice. The Fire TV and remote themselves also don't have built-in speakers, so your music will come out of your TV speakers, or an audio system that's connected to your TV.